


No One Else but You

by In_agony_and_ecstasy



Series: No Matter What [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Angst, Best Friends, Bi-curious, Coming of Age, Fighting, First Time, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hooking up, M/M, Making Up, Questioning, Roommates, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Slow Build, Unrequited Love, besexuality, bisexual!jean, in the closet, jeanconnie, love jeanconnie with me pls I'm all by myself, past springles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 06:50:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4596996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_agony_and_ecstasy/pseuds/In_agony_and_ecstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connie and Jean have been best friends ever since they had a dorm together in college. Connie is used to Jean's hookups, and thinks nothing of the guys and girls that leave Jean's bedroom early in the morning. He has his own problems to worry about, like the growing strain on his relationship with his girlfriend Sasha.</p><p>All of this becomes a lot more complicated when Connie notices that Jean's latest boyfriend is embarrassed of their relationship, and using him for sex. </p><p>It bothers Connie so much, and in a way he's not used to. Because he looks at Jean now the way he looked at Sasha, and he knows he would never treat Jean like that if it was him.  Assuming he liked guys of course, but he doesn't...</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Else but You

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry I wrote this long Jeanconnie fic instead of updating The Things I Used to Know. 
> 
> I had a dire need to get this out of my system. I'll focus solely on The Things I Used to Know (and Eremarco week but that's easy) until I update.
> 
> Thanks for being patient!

It all started when he was with someone else. Sort of with him, or something. Jean tried to explain it to me. He was with this guy, but only when they were alone. The guy, in my head I called him No-Show because that was what he was (I couldn’t be bothered to remember his name), couldn’t come out of the closet. So Jean let him come over every night he showed up, usually on the weekend, even though he had cancelled on their lunch date earlier that week. Even though when they had gone out with some friends earlier, No-Show had denied knowing Jean very well at all. They were just classmates, of course. Lab partners, nothing more. 

And I’d asked him, “Okay, so, tell me again _why_ you’re still seeing this guy?”

Jean had sighed, turning the volume down on the TV. “Because…he’s…he’s cool, okay. I like being around him.”

“You’re letting him treat you like shit. If Sasha was doing something like that to _me_ I’d -”

“But I’m not you and it’s not the same. You’re straight, okay? You don’t get how it works. You never had to be in the closet.” Jean ran his fingers through his blond undercut the way he did whenever he was frustrated or upset. His jaw clenched as he focused too hard on the evening news flashing in my periphery. His hazel eyes were squinted, almost like he was in pain. He hated when I brought this shit up, and the longer he saw this guy the more I did. 

Their relationship didn’t seem that complicated to me, but what the hell did I know? “So, because you’re gay he gets to use you for sex whenever he shows up drunk?”

“God, Connie! He doesn’t _use_ me for sex – It’s not just sex. Sometimes, you know, he just comes over and talks…it’s nice. Besides, it’s none of your fucking business. And I’m not gay. I’m _bi_. That’s another thing you straight people fucking do. Try to make everything black and white. Like either he’s got to be an angel or he’s a piece of shit. He’s doing what he can.” 

I was used to Jean’s temper tantrums and the occasional rant. But that was the first time I remembered seeing Jean genuinely hurt, and ranting out of nerves rather than irritation. It was the first time I ever heard him change the subject to distract himself instead of the person he was talking to. He didn’t want to believe what I was saying. I didn’t want to believe it either. 

“Well, it sounds like fucking a lot more than talking,” I muttered, “I’m pretty sure the closet isn’t keeping him from talking to you.”

Jean winced, probably thinking about the fact that I could hear them having sex. My bedroom was right next to his. Our apartment wasn’t nice enough to have walls that weren’t paper-thin. He should have guessed by now. When Sasha came over, we either didn’t do it or we were quiet. We talked more than we fucked. Certainly, if No-Show could risk all his groaning and cursing and disgusting praise of Jean while fucking he could talk to Jean more often afterward? 

Jean tossed the remote at me and I jumped to get it. I set it on the coffee table as he stood up. He headed toward his bedroom. “Sorry about the noise,” he mumbled over his shoulder as he walked away, “I’ll shut him up next time he comes over.”

Just before he stepped in his room he gave me one last glance with a torn, bitter expression, and that was how it had started. That had been the first time I could ever remember looking at a man the way I had always looked at women. And it scared the living shit out of me. 

…

After the first drill, I had decided to stay at Sasha’s place for a few days, almost like I needed to test drive my sexuality and make sure it was intact. 

When I showed up at her doorstep, unannounced in the middle of the night after my panic, I lied, “Jean and his boyfriend are fighting. Can’t sleep.”

She shrugged and let me inside. She made some popcorn and chatted to me about her day. I tried to listen, but it was one of those times when I was focusing so much on focusing that I couldn’t actually focus. Trying to listen always got in the way of actually listening, and I ended up just nodding when I needed to and catching the moments I was supposed to laugh at. 

What I really ended up doing instead of listening, was checking my girlfriend of two years out like I was seeing her for the first time in a bar. 

She was taller than me, which always kind of bugged me but at least she didn’t mind it. Her hair was long and auburn. At the moment, it was tied back into a tangled pony-tail. I guessed she’d been sleeping before I showed up. 

Definitely still liked the hair. 

She stood on her toes to reach the popcorn on the top shelf. I gazed at her long, smooth, brown legs flex as she did. She was wearing her favorite pair of pink shorts with little elephants on them. 

Check on the legs. 

When she turned around, I got a glance at the rest of her. She was chubby in that extremely adorable way, and what made it even better was she didn’t really know it. She wasn’t insecure, but she also wasn’t flaunting it, and I could never tell if she paid any mind to her weight at all. I liked that. I’d always liked that. Nothing new there. It didn’t hurt that her chubbiness sort of…filled out the rest of her in the best ways either.

Okay, so – enough of that. I still liked her body. 

She strode over to the microwave, bouncing the whole way there on the balls of her feet. She heated up the popcorn and hummed as she waited. She had really full lips, and big brown eyes that were always squinted up with her smile. 

God, just, everything about her was beautiful. Really, it was. Two years had passed and I still never wanted to take my eyes off her.

How many other couples could say that? Right? 

So what the fuck was going on with me? Why did I literally have to take a break from Jean? He was my roommate. My best friend. And I loved the guy, I’d die for him, I would. But the thought of seeing him right now made me want to throw up. 

The popcorn finished popping and Sasha hopped back over into her living room to sit beside me. Her TV had been on – she often fell asleep on her couch – and she’d been watching late night telenovelas. She claimed she didn’t like them at all and just wanted to hear some Spanish since she wasn’t living at home with her parents in Texas anymore, but it had been a year since she moved out and she couldn’t stand her mom and sometimes I caught her mouthing the words to an episode she’d seen too many times. For that, I didn’t even care that I didn’t understand what the fuck they were saying. I watched them with her, and I let her recap them in her own way. She probably made them significantly better anyways.

“Want some?” she chirped, as she gestured toward the bowl. I shook my head. She arched an eyebrow. Well, it wasn’t like me to turn down popcorn. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just…” I started. She looked at me with those innocent, doe eyes. I felt guilty and couldn’t explain why. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. “Just, uh, worried about Jean.”

She nodded. “Yeah, me too. That guy is such a pig.”

“I try to tell him, but…”

“Listen honey, before I met you I would have done the same silly thing. It’s easier to tell yourself a guy is mysterious and a secret relationship is romantic than it is to admit you’re a booty-call. Jean just has to learn on his own.”

Of course, she had managed to make me feel better. This too made me feel guilty. We began watching a movie she put in, a romantic comedy the two of us could make fun of together like we always did. We barely got into it before Sasha realized I wasn’t in the mood. She dragged me to bed, telling me I was turning into an old man who couldn’t stay up past ten, and balding like one too. 

The lights went out, and we lay in bed. Her fingers trailed through my buzzed hair absent-mindedly. 

I wondered if No-Show ever ran his fingers through Jean’s hair. 

… 

Weeks passed without another incident and I was beginning to think I had imagined it. After a couple days at Sasha’s I went back home. Jean’s situation was no different, of course, but neither were _we_. That was what mattered most at the time. I could go to a movie with him or play video games or study together for the one class we shared, and it was just Jean and me. Like we’d always been. 

Until Jean had to go and catch the flu. It was the middle of October, not even snowing outside yet, and Jean woke up with a sore throat and a fever. He insisted he was fine, it was just a cold, it’d be gone by tomorrow. After taking some Dayquil he went to class with me anyways. As far as I could tell he paid attention in Lit. Then he went into work. He worked as a grocery store janitor, and he swore it was an easy, boring job that his being sick wouldn’t make a difference.

Of course it did. Stubbornness apparently wasn’t the cure for the flu, and he swung our front door open that night coughing up his throat and sniffling. As if to make the point even clearer, he barely made it into the kitchen before he threw up in the sink. I yelled, “I fucking told you! You look like you’re gonna die, dude.”

“Shut up, Connie,” he groaned. “I _feel_ like I’m going to die but I’ll take you with me.”

I laughed as he washed out the sink. He even had to turn on the disposal on and I laughed even louder. He told me to shut up again, but it was half-hearted. 

His next stop was to the bathroom. Because he was just brushing his teeth, he didn’t bother to close the door at first. That was why when he began undressing to get in the shower, I got a peek at an exhausted, clumsy, nearly-tipping-over-and-hitting-his-head-on-the-door strip-tease until he was in his boxers. Then he swung the door shut.

I’d been living with Jean over a year in this apartment, and before that we were roommates in college our freshmen year. But somehow, I hadn’t noticed until these past few weeks that Jean and I pretty regularly walked around in our boxers. When we first got our dorm together, Jean had warned me, “Hey, I fuck guys. So, if that’s going to weird you out just request a new roommate now.”

It was the first thing he said to me, and I had responded, “Nice to meet you, too.”

He’d said, “Sorry, I just like getting that out of the way. I like to find out if people are homophobic _before_ I’m friends with them.”

“Makes sense,” I said, shrugging. “Well, I don’t fuck guys. If that’s cool.” 

He had huffed out a laugh and nodded. “I guess.”

Once we’d gotten our blunt introduction out of the way, he acted around me just about the same way any other guy would, so it had never mattered if I walked around in my boxers or if he did. Especially once I had started dating Sash, and he’d mentioned how cute she was.

“You can tell?” I asked.

Jean snorted. “I like girls too, but anyone could tell Sash is cute.”

“I know right,” I had answered. 

Everything had felt natural for us, even then. Those were two of the very few times besides Jean’s outburst about straight people assuming everything was black or white, that I could even remember having a conversation about sexuality with Jean. Maybe I was just used to him, and the guys he dated. Maybe I was beyond that straight person thing when everyone assumed everyone else was straight, and that was why I hadn’t paid attention to it for so long. Or maybe I just didn’t care enough to pay attention to it to begin with, but now I couldn’t _not_ pay attention to it. 

He was undressing all the time. 

Like right now, when the shower had stopped and he’d walked out of the bathroom in nothing but his towel. I realized I’d stared at the shower door the entire time he was in there, just gawking at the fact that he was undressing like he always did. Now, Jean strode through the living room, drops of water plummeting from his hair onto the hardwood. His stomach and shoulders were glistening in the dim TV light as he headed into his bedroom. With some effort, I forced my eyes to stay on the TV screen. I hoped I looked casual, bored even. Hopefully, I looked as unaffected by his presence as I always had. 

“Fuck! It’s cold,” he yelled from his bedroom. 

“I’ll turn the heat up.” 

By the time he got out, the thermostat was up and a spare blanket had been tossed on the couch along with one of my pillows. 

Jean stared at me, in the kitchen, as I put a pot of water on the stove. “What’re you doing?”

“Making chicken broth,” I responded.

“Uh, _why_?” 

“For you, so you don’t die.”

He looked like he might argue, but then he gave in. His shoulders slumped and his features softened as he plopped on to the couch. He wore a hoodie – my hoodie, which fit him only because I often wore clothes a size or two too big – and I wondered if he hadn’t noticed he’d grabbed mine from the laundry basket or if he just didn’t give a shit. 

The broth boiled. I poured it into a bowl and carried it out to him with a spoon. While reaching out for the bowl, he scooted into a sitting position and cocooned himself in the blanket. He hugged the pillow I brought him. Jean ignored the spoon, and drank the chicken broth right from the bowl, chugging it like it was Gatorade. 

“Pick a movie,” he ordered as he balled up around the pillow. His face was so pale, especially in the fluorescent lighting from the TV. 

We ended up putting in The Amazing Spider-Man two. We both liked the movies, but both agreed that they could have been written so much better. 

“See,” Jean was saying, “I’m just sick of watching movies about a character that could have easily been bi but they just, like, _don’t_ for no reason. Despite how much better the movie would be.”

I felt the same way, but with black characters. They completely missed an opportunity with Peter Parker, given how much cops criminalized him despite him specifically going after rogue criminals when his Uncle Ben first died. It would make sense to make him black, but that wasn’t why I wanted him to be. People like me shouldn’t only be in movies when it “made sense”. 

It never occurred to me that Jean might feel the same way about gay characters – bisexual, or whatever characters. 

“You want Spider-Man to be bi?” I asked.

Jean pursed his lips, and squinted at the TV as Peter Parker made it to graduation just a second before his name was called up to the podium.

“It’s not just that I want him to be. Just think about it, Harry Osborne is his childhood friend, right? Someone he hasn’t seen in years…not since they were like, twelve or whatever. And he finds out Harry’s dad dies and he just goes and sees him? They literally haven’t talked in _years_.”

I cleared my throat. I’d seen the movie as many times as Jean. Until now I hadn’t realized we were watching the movie in two completely different ways. “I never thought about it like that before.” 

Jean ran his fingers through his hair. He coughed for a while, and then groaned because of how annoying his cough was. He sneezed into his elbow and wrapped the blanket tighter around him before he continued. 

“Then Harry talks about all the models he’s banging – like that wouldn’t make Peter really jealous – and Harry asks Peter if he has anyone…Peter says _it’s complicated_ , which I know is supposed to be about Gwen…but how easy would it have been to be about Harry? His straight best friend he couldn’t get over, not even since they were kids.”

On the screen, Peter and Gwen agree to meet at the restaurant later. I already knew he was going to show up and Gwen was going to break up with him. Peter couldn’t get over the promise he made to her dad before he died that he wouldn’t see her anymore, because being Spider-man would always put her at risk. The story had been done for every superhero ever, it seemed, which had been dull and totally predictable even the first time I saw the movies. 

Jean coughed again, and his voice was a rasp as he continued. “Then Harry gets sick, and Peter’s losing his mind about it…Harry asks Peter to get _Spider-Man’s blood_ without even _knowing_ he’s Peter…and Peter still says he’ll do what he can. Like, that’s a ridiculous risk he’s taking for a childhood 'friend'. He even goes and sees Harry in his suit…like that wouldn’t risk Harry finding out who he is…You can’t tell me that this doesn’t sound like…like if Harry had been a girl, there’d totally be something between them. No one would even question it.”

We were both quiet for a moment. He was right, totally right and I’d never seen it before because I hadn’t grown up with a reason to look. Or I hadn’t thought I had…Lately, it seemed like I should have been paying more attention. 

“I’m just saying,” Jean nearly whispered, “It seems like he’s in love with his straight best friend. To me. But maybe that’s just ‘cause I’ve been there.”

A shock jolted my chest like I’d been electrocuted. I whipped my head in his direction. He was staring at the screen. “You have?” 

Jean turned to look at me. His eyes were wider than I was expecting. They were bloodshot, making them look even more amber. My eyes were hazel too, but not like his. They were distracting me all the time now. 

“Uh, um, yeah,” he mumbled. He fidgeted in his seat a bit. “I mean, it’s not like I’m special for that. Everyone like me does, probably. It’s just a…just a thing, you gotta deal with. You know, try to get past because like…it’s different than it is for a straight couple. I’ve had crushes on girls that didn’t like me back but…there was always that hope. It felt like there was still a chance that maybe one day she’d change her mind. But with guys…you have to deal with the fact that it’s literally impossible for them to love you. And you didn’t do anything, it’s not your fault, there’s nothing you can do. It’s just the way it is…It’s the worst feeling I’ve ever had.”

Since we’d been living together, Jean and I had stayed up many nights just talking. It felt like I’d talked to Jean about most things, religion, sex, parents, insecurities, hopes, dreams, the whole shebang. But Jean never let himself dive too deep. Everything was superficial, unimportant, and simple for him. Sometimes I liked that, because sometimes I just needed the superficial, unimportant, simple way of hearing it. 

But I liked hearing him like this. I liked hearing him speaking about something that _mattered_ to him, not just something he happened to have an opinion about. 

“I had no idea, dude,” I muttered, knowing it didn’t even come close to what I wanted to say. I had no idea how to put in words what I wanted to say. But I wanted to take this feeling from him. 

Jean shrugged. It felt like he was purposefully avoiding eye contact. “It’s no big deal. Can’t expect you to get it.”

Over the span of my life I’d learned from other people one thing about myself, and that was that I never seemed to get it. Whatever it was, I didn’t get it. 

As usual, I wanted to. I always wanted to. This time it felt like I needed to. This time, if I had gotten it, maybe I wouldn’t be having a crisis right now about my best friend, and how much I loved taking care of him while he was sick and how much it hurt to see him reflect on memories that he couldn’t forget.

Jean and I didn’t talk about bi Spider-Man anymore after that. We talked about the movie and recapped our favorite parts like we always did. But the air felt stale around us and the longer we sat there the further Jean felt away from me. I kept peeking at him in my periphery, we kept making eye contact, and I felt my cheeks heat up each time. My stomach was twisting thinking about Sasha at her home, and what she was doing right now, and what she’d think of me if she knew that I was looking at Jean the same way I’d looked at her when we first started dating.

I felt guilty, and lost, and scared, and confused, and anxious, and angry all at once because this was happening. I didn’t know how to get rid of it. I didn’t know how to stop looking at Jean _that way_ or even why it was happening. I was twenty one years old. I would know by now if I liked guys, so what was this bullshit? 

Was it just because Sasha and I felt so distant lately? Because, when I went to her house we ran out of stuff to say and never went out like we used to? Because, when I tried to talk to her about fights she’d had with her mom, I always somehow ended up just making her angrier? 

My relationship felt like it was slipping away in a breeze and no matter how much I chased and dived for it the wind picked it up faster. It was to the point now that I had to brace myself to see her, and spent the whole night on edge while I was there.

It wasn't supposed to be like that with someone you loved, and I _did_ love her.

But I looked at Jean now, who was always on my mind even when I was at school, or with Sasha…and I knew it wasn’t supposed to feel like this either. 

By the time the movie was halfway over, Jean’s cough had died down. He sniffled some, sneezed once, and told me he wouldn’t go to school or work tomorrow. His eyelids looked heavy. Every passing minute Jean sunk further into the cushion. Until he was asleep, breathing deeply, and leaning on my shoulder.

His body was so warm, but the hand that had bumped my arm was chilled like it had been in ice water. In his sleep, he curled closer to me. His head struggled to get comfy on my shoulder and I cursed how bony I was. But the jostling passed and Jean settled. 

My hand reached for the remote to turn the TV down so it wouldn’t wake him. Jean snored. I counted his breaths. I felt his body rise and fall against me. My heart was pounding, because this felt so nice, and it shouldn’t. This felt warm, and safe, and gentle, like nothing bad in the world was happening at this moment because how could it be when Jean’s head was resting against my shoulder? 

I balled my hands into fist so that I wouldn’t run my hands through his hair, even as it brushed against my neck. 

When it was too late for me to stay up, I nudged Jean awake. He groaned and dragged himself off the couch in the direction of his bedroom. He tripped again before finding his balance. “Oh, shit,” he said, stopping in his doorway, “Sorry I never remember to say thanks. Like for the broth and shit.”

I slipped my hands into my pockets and shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Night, Connie,” he mumbled as his bedroom door shut. 

I stared at it for a moment, wondering what it would be like to follow him in there and sleep beside him. Then I went into my bedroom to sleep alone. 

…

Sasha was on the phone with her mom. They’d been talking for some time. Even though they were speaking in Spanish, I could hear whenever Sasha said my name. Whatever their argument was about, it had something to deal with me. The really weird thing about it was Sasha _never_ raised her voice. Even when we fought, she might cry, and her voice might morph into a squeak, but she didn’t ever actually yell. This argument, she was yelling and it was laced with venom. She was so loud I jumped a few times as I watched her pace back and forth down the hallway, flailing her hands in the air as she did. 

At some point, she hung up on her mom and came back to lay with me in bed. When her mom had called, we’d been about to go to sleep. 

“What’s her problem this time?” I asked. 

Sasha’s eyes met mine, and they pinched like whatever she was about to tell me she was going to have to sugarcoat. “My mom wants to meet you.”

“Haven’t you told her like a hundred times I’ll come home with you next time you go?” 

Sasha winced again. “Yeah.”

“Then I don’t get it. Why’s she so pissed off tonight?” 

Sasha sat at the edge of her bed. Her hand smoothed out a few wrinkles that bloated up again a second later. Strands of her auburn hair had fallen from the pony-tail into her eyes. I sat up to tuck them behind her ear. She flinched away from me.

“Sash?” 

“Because I told her that I’m coming home over Thanksgiving break without you,” she mumbled, squishing her words together so she could say it all in one quick breath. 

“What? Why? I’ve saved up for my ticket and everything so you don’t have to worry about –”

“It’s not that Connie,” she whispered. “I just think I want to go alone.”

I felt like the whole world had stopped spinning, and my heart started fluttering. This could only be going one direction, right? I wasn’t imagining this? 

“Why? But your mom – she’ll just get even more –”

Sasha rested her hand on my thigh. “I haven’t been home in a long time. I miss my friends. While I’m there…I just want to, like, do my thing and be around family and friends. You’re the only person I spend time with and if I bring you home everything’s going to be all about ‘Sasha and her boyfriend’.” 

I stared at her, waiting for her to tell me the problem, since I didn’t really see one. She’d wanted that. A month ago she had begged me to beg my mom to give up Thanksgiving with me so that I could go with her, instead of waiting for winter break. _The point_ had been to introduce me to all her friends and family. 

“Okay, so, what’s wrong with that?” 

“Nothing. I just, I want them to be excited to see me. And be with me. If I bring you home my parents are going to be talking about a wedding, and kids, and my friends are going to be asking you every question under the sun and I –”

“I thought that was what you wanted.”

“It is!” she blurted, inching closer to me on the bed. “It is, sweetie, it’s just…you know, not right now.”

“But _why not_ right now? What’s the point of putting it off?”

She sighed and scrubbed a hand across her face. “I just need some time alone. That’s all. You can come home with me for Christmas or whatever…”

I shook my head. “If you don’t want me to go with you now you won’t then.”

“That’s not true!” she snapped.

“ _Yes_ , it is. I don’t know why you suddenly – is it because you’re embarrassed of me? Or ‘cause you know they won’t approve of me?”

“No! God, Connie, you just don’t get it! I just want some _me_ time with them! I want to hang out with my family and friends like I did before I transferred to this school!”

She had a desperate look in her eyes now, but an exhausted one too. Because she’d just been on the phone with her mom who _wanted_ me there, and she…All the yelling had been her insisting that I didn’t come. That was how fucking badly she didn’t want me to come. The angriest I’d ever seen Sasha in the year that I had known her had been about how angry she was that her mom wanted to meet me. How fucked up was that? 

“This is – that’s fucked up, Sash,” I spit, “Your mom wants me to come more than you do and – this is all so fucked up. A month ago you were begging me to come and now – what the fuck happened?”

She stared at me for a long while, so long I felt like she wasn’t real, like she was just someone who looked a lot like my girlfriend. Right now she was a stranger. Part of me wanted to hold her but I knew that if I tried to, I couldn’t. It had never been like that with us before. We could always talk, we could always knit ourselves back together, but tonight she felt too far away for any of that. 

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know what happened.”

I shook my head. My eyes stung but I didn’t want to cry in front of her. I wanted her to think I was pissed off, not hurt, but I was. My chest felt hallow, it hurt so much. 

“That’s – that’s fucked up, Sash,” I repeated, before pulling myself out of her bed. I had pajama bottoms on but no shirt and I searched for it on her floor until I found it and tugged it on. I grabbed my wallet and whatever else of mine I could find. 

“Are you going?” she choked. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” 

She whimpered and I almost buckled. She was crying now too and her eyes looked like they were made of glass. It was physically painful to look away from a face like that but I did. I had my own pain to worry about let alone hers. I didn’t do this – she did, she could handle it. 

She called for me as I stepped out the door. It took everything I had not to turn right back around and beg her to give me another chance. 

I drove home in the darkness in a haze, barely paying enough attention to stop signs and speed limits to drive without getting in an accident. 

When I finally climbed up the flight of stairs to my apartment floor, and reached my front door, I nudged it open hoping that I wouldn’t wake Jean if he had been asleep. He wasn’t expecting me to be coming home and I didn’t really want to talk about what had happened. I knew he’d be angrier than even me. He’d probably come up with a few more reasons why it was fucked up and convince me to be even angrier with her. I didn’t want that. 

Of course, Jean _wasn’t_ asleep. No less than a second after I stepped into my entryway, I had to scurry into my kitchen to not be seen. In the doorway to his bedroom, No-Show had Jean’s back pressed against a wall. They were both already shirtless, although I’d only gotten a glimpse. Thankfully, they were just making out. 

Their lips smacked and one of them sighed, probably No-Show. I figured I’d recognize Jean’s sigh. They quieted, but a moment later I heard the most drawn out, desperate moan escape Jean’s throat. 

It was different than all the times I’d overheard them in my bedroom. When I was in my bedroom, the wall muffled a lot of the finer details. Usually, I couldn’t hear anything more than that it was definitely sex. When I did hear someone say something, it was always No-Show, and it always made me gag. 

But this time it was Jean. He was the one moaning, the one gasping, and pleading. He cursed, and told No-Show to keep doing it _just like that_. It took me longer than it should have to realize No-Show was going down on Jean, and that Jean wasn’t moaning out of desire right now but pleasure. 

All I wanted was to make a dash for my bedroom, but knew I couldn’t without being seen. Instead, I was crouched behind my kitchen’s counter so that I was out of sight, and clasped my hands over my ears. That didn’t help anything. Jean’s voice slipped through my fingers anyway. Before I could redirect my thoughts, and think of something to distract myself, my pants were becoming too tight for comfort. He sounded _really_ fucking hot. I couldn’t help it. 

Eventually, I just let myself hear it. My hands dropped. I tilted my head back and closed my eyes. I tried not to hear it the way I was hearing it. I tried to hear it as someone else, and not Jean. I tried to hear it the way a straight man would hear it, annoyed and probably grossed out. But I couldn’t, and my cock was aching in my pants. 

Jean gasped that he was about to come, and I imagined myself looking up at him, hearing him gasp, his stomach tightening. I bit my lip, hard, trying to keep the fantasy at bay. I was imagining myself in No-Show’s place and I wanted it, so badly, in that moment. 

But then Jean’s moans slurred into No-Show’s actual name as he climaxed. I was almost surprised to hear it, but just as soon felt the usual twist in my gut. It made me feel sick. 

I wasn’t in No-Show’s place, and why would I be? 

They finally retreated into Jean’s room. The door clicked shut. I stood, tip-toed into my bedroom, and collapsed on my bed without even undressing. 

Earbuds went in my ears, and I turned the volume up as high as it would go so that the music would drown out the noise of them having sex. 

The sky faded from black night into early-morning gray before I fell asleep. All the time, I kept wondering why I had wanted to be in No-Show’s place, why I had gotten so turned on from hearing Jean’s moans. 

I decided to blame the fact that I’d been too busy to jerk off lately and Sasha and I hadn’t been having sex either. I was just pent up, that was all. 

Finally, I succumbed to sweet unconsciousness. 

In the morning, which was actually passed noon since I’d skipped class, I opened my bedroom just enough to peer out of it, and make sure No-Show wasn’t still here. Once in a while, on the rare occasions he didn’t leave as soon as possible, even after Jean left for school or work, he’d stick around. Only when I got up or came back home would he leave. We didn’t speak, but I hated those few seconds of eye-contact and dealing with his existence at all. 

He wasn’t out there, so I could safely walk through my apartment, make myself a bowl of cereal, and pretend last night never happened. Sasha had left a few texts on my phone this morning. She was probably in class right now. I’d wait until her class ended before I called. To tell the truth, I wasn’t looking forward to it. Somehow I knew if I called her we wouldn’t make up we’d just continue the fight. 

I only got halfway through the apartment before my toes stepped on Jean’s shirt, still tossed on the floor. His shoes, the ones he wore everywhere regardless of the occasion, had been thrown in two different directions the night before. His bedroom door was shut. First I knocked. A few seconds passed without a sound, and I sighed in relief. But then he groaned, “What?”

I opened the door. He was sitting up in bed rubbing the tired from his eyes. Other than the sheet he’d pulled over himself to hide his junk, Jean was completely naked. The sun shined through his drapes and illuminated his skin. I felt like every single hair on his body knew what I had heard last night. 

“What, Connie, what? Why aren’t you at Sasha’s?” he snapped.

“Do you know what time it is?” I asked, ignoring the question. It stung a little, how obvious it was that he wasn’t expecting me to be home and didn’t want me to be. 

He shook his head. Then he glanced around his room, as if just becoming aware of where he was. “Where is he? In the living room?”

“What? No. No one’s here,” I said. “Look, dude, it’s almost one. You slept through your classes.”

Jean’s eyes finally widened. One of his hands reached and slapped against the empty, unoccupied half of his bed. He stared at it for a moment too long for it to be meaningless. “He said he’d stay,” Jean whispered. “Last night. He said he’d stay.”

A pang of longing washed over me. Jean was being vulnerable. He didn’t even realize it, or surely he would put up a façade. Oh it hurt more than I would have expected to see him like this. 

What sucked the most was that I wouldn’t have left. He wouldn’t have even needed to ask me to stay. 

Jean recovered quickly. He looked at me and said, “Fuck, I missed classes?”

I nodded. “I did too, actually.”

Jean shook his head. “I got work in an hour.”

I left him alone to get ready for work, even though I didn’t want to. 

… 

After British Lit on Friday, both my and Jean’s classes were done for the day. We carpooled, so as we herded our way out of the classroom with the other students I walked with him. Jean hadn’t mentioned No-Show once since he dipped out early on him last week. He wasn’t even looking at his phone when he got text messages. He slept in, and ate too late in the night even though he skipped breakfast in the morning. Whenever we hung out now, he zoned out so often that I’d end up repeating something I’d said a number of times. I was worried about him, but with Jean, no one was allowed to be worried about him. He always brushed it off. 

As we walked through the halls, the two of us swerved around groups of other people on their way to class. It was midday, and the chatter of excess students and heels clacking and doors slamming would have made it hard to keep a conversation with Jean, let alone one about how I was worried for him, so we didn’t talk. 

In my periphery, I kept my eye on him. For the last week he’d kept his chin down, staring at his feet as he walked. Today at least he was glancing around. 

When I wasn’t looking at him, I was analyzing the halls myself. Ever since I overheard him with No-Show, I couldn’t stop checking guys out. Every guy that passed me, I looked him up and down. What was it about Jean that other guys didn’t have? Or did they and I never let myself see? Some guys were obviously good-looking. They were the kinds of guys that ended up on magazines or in movies or whatever. But just because I could tell they were attractive didn’t make me attracted to them, right? 

I had no idea. 

Some other guys looked…good, too, I guessed. With each guy I made sure to check out all the things I thought I was supposed to. Their eyes, their hair, their biceps, their stomach, ass whatever, I checked it all. I tried to see them the way I saw girls, which was hard, because with girls I didn’t have to try. When a girl was sexy I knew, it hit me in the fucking face. 

While I was debating, a wall walked into me and actually hit me in the face. My hand swung up to touch what would no doubt be a bruise on my forehead, given the wall was brick, but all I managed to do was hit myself again. Nearby, some girls giggled. One person asked if I was okay. I ignored them.

Jean snorted, “Dude, what’s with you?”

I sighed, “I’m just...paying even less attention today than usual.”

“Apparently.” Jean was smiling, and my chest swelled at the sight. Had his smile always been so crooked? So cocky?

This morning we’d taken Jean’s car. He climbed into the driver’s seat. I sat beside him. The apartment wasn’t more than five miles away. Jean turned on the radio. Something soft, even a little sad played, but I didn’t know the words. Under his breath, probably low enough he didn’t think I could hear, Jean sang along with the words. The sound was soothing, and I wanted to hear more. He kept one hand on the steering wheel, one resting on the door. It was the most peaceful I’d seen him in a while. 

At home, he proceeded into his room. Although I hadn’t consciously decided to, I followed him.

Jean arched an eyebrow, but said nothing about it. His backpack dropped to the floor. Then he took out a book. “What’s up?” he asked.

“Can I ask you something? And can you promise not to, like, look into it too deeply?” 

Any remaining arrogance dissipated. Jean actually looked a little concerned. His fingers threaded in his book. I didn’t think he actually wanted to read it. He just always needed to be threading his fingers through something.

“Uh, sure, I guess.”

I got a hunch we could be talking a while. I sat down on the bed. He balled up like he always did and hugged a pillow to his chest. His back leaned against the headboard. My own hand clung to the foot of the bed.

“How did you figure out you were bisexual?” My eyes were stuck on the stacks of videogames lying on his floor. If I looked at him, he might see right through me.

Jean jerked his head back, looking a little bewildered. Yeah, I had never been expecting to hear that question come from my mouth either but here we were. 

“It was more like…finding out I wasn’t straight. Like, everyone sort of always assumed I _was_ , and well, I liked girls. So…I thought they were right. But eventually I noticed the way I looked at guys was different than other guys.”

“How?” 

Jean paused, pressing his head against the headboard to think about it. “Like…I had a _type_. Every guy I knew could tell when another guy was hot, right, but it was always sort of…based on what they’d been _told_ made a guy hot. And I realized that it wasn’t like that for me. The guys that I 'could tell were attractive' weren’t just guys that were obviously attractive to girls. They were my _type_ , and no other straight guy I knew had a type.” 

If I knew anything at all about what was going on with me right now, it was that I couldn’t name a type. Unless, _Jean_ was my type. Maybe I only liked guys like Jean. Maybe the reason I never knew I liked guys was because guys like Jean were so uncommon. 

He was different to me, at least, than most other guys. Sure, he was arrogant and temperamental. Sometimes he even seemed selfish. But with Jean, that was just a façade. Underneath all that, he was an insecure, cynical, shy guy that had too much on his mind. I just…had to be around him for a very long time before I realized that about him was all.

“So that’s it then? You realized you had a type and then _boom_ , you knew you were bisexual?”

Jean shrugged. He was squinting at the ceiling. His hands flipped his book open and shuffled through the pages a couple of times. “Sort of. That was what started it. After that I paid attention to guys more…and noticed more things, like how it was equally hard for me to talk to guys that were my type as it was girls. Eventually…I had a crush on a guy, and couldn’t stop thinking about him, and always wanted to be around him. Then I went through a really long phase of denial, because I was so freaked out. But by my second crush on a guy, I knew I was bi.”

“So, you didn’t have to like… _be_ with a guy to know?”

Jean sighed. He shook his head. “No. Everyone thinks that, but no. I mean, just think about it, Connie. Before you lost your virginity, was there any doubt you liked girls? Or did you find out you were straight when you had sex?”

“Well, when you put it that way,” I mumbled. He chuckled. 

“You don’t need to have sex with someone to know you _want_ to.”

Now, of course, I had to wonder whether or not I wanted to have sex with Jean. Just thinking about it made my shoulders stiffen and my stomach twist. Yet, I knew that was only the case because I was “supposed” to feel that. Since I was straight, the rule was that having sex with a guy should gross me out. 

So, it _did_ in a strange way, but only because I felt like that was the obvious reaction. Step one: I thought about having sex with a man. Naturally I moved on to step 2: Become grossed out. 

Right? 

Had I ever considered whether or not it _actually_ grossed me out though? 

“Try not to think too hard, Connie,” Jean teased, as he flipped to the pages hugging his bookmark. 

“Do you think it’s possible to, like, not know for a really long time?” That caught his attention, but I didn’t stop. “Like, everyone’s always told me that gay kids know they’re gay in the womb or whatever. They just always know. That seemed easy enough. But no one’s ever told me, except like you, how it works for, uh, bi people. Does it happen… _later_? If it does, I mean, _how_ late?”

Jean was silent for a minute. Apparently, my question really intrigued him because he even set his book down. The weight shifted in the bed and Jean scooted closer to me. I turned to face him, and oh fuck, I’d never been this close to him. His eyelashes were long, and all the points of his face were hard, like he thought too much about everything. The only part of his face that wasn’t intense, wasn’t so difficult to look head-on were his lips. They were soft, not full like mine, but the edges weren’t so sharp. I couldn’t stop staring at them. 

“I don’t know, Connie. It didn’t happen right away for me, but that was because everyone told me it couldn’t. I grew up around people who didn’t think being bi was real. I think it’s probably different for everybody. Shit happens, you know?" 

“Yeah,” I said, quietly, “I guess it does.”

Now he was really close to me. So close I could feel his breath on my neck, the warmth of his body against mine. This felt nice, and when he had laid against my shoulder it felt nice. I was comfortable. I knew I would be even if he got closer. Even if he undressed. 

“Connie, your hands are shaking…are you…What’s going on?”

I stood up and headed toward his door. “I gotta call Sash.”

“What? Wait – Connie, wait. Did I – are you mad at me?” 

I looked at him over my shoulder. He had stood up, but he was just standing there. One hand had reached for me but he shoved them both in his pockets. Jean looked scared, fragile and vulnerable again. His mouth opened a few times, like he couldn’t figure out what to say. 

“Why would I be mad?” I asked. His face softened, and I could have sworn he looked relieved. 

“Look, dude…I know you don’t want to hear this, probably. But it’s okay to not know. It’s okay to not have it all figured out. No one’s testing you.”

Then why did it feel like I was being put through the worst final of my life? Why did I feel like I had just solved a math problem and none of the answers A-D on the multiple choice test matched mine? 

“I gotta call Sash,” I said again, and left the room. 

…

The phone call with Sash was tense, but only because I was waiting for something to go wrong. I told her I missed her, that I was sorry for freaking out over something little, and that I wanted to see her. She hesitated on the other end, but agreed I should come over. 

When the front door of her house swung open, I stepped in. Right away, I was pulling her into my arms. I held her tight. I smelled her, felt her pressed against my body, combed my fingers through her hair…I wanted to be overwhelmed by her tonight. I wanted to wake up tomorrow, next to her, without a single doubt in my mind. She could do that, Sasha always made things right. 

“I missed you,” I told her. I couldn’t believe I’d let myself go so long without seeing her. 

“I missed you, too,” she said, my chest felt warm. “Can we talk?”

I nodded. Then she tugged me by my hand toward the couch. She sat me down beside her. I hoped making up with her would be quick and painless, so that I could finally get on with my life. So that things could be normal again. 

“Listen Connie, I’ve been thinking…” She started, “About us.”

“Me too,” I breathed, even though I hadn’t really been thinking about us much. Not as much as I should have been. 

She smiled but wiped it off her face right away. “Lately, I’ve been thinking about how you’re the only real boyfriend I’ve ever had. You know, I never had any in high school and…I’m three years into college now and you’ve been my only boyfriend.”

I shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

She sighed, the way she does when I’m “not getting it”. 

“I mean…My mom wants us to get _married_ and all I can think about is how not ready I am.”

“Sash…I never asked you to marry me.”

“I know,” she blurted, “I know, you didn’t, Connie. Let me finish. I’m not ready because I feel like I haven’t really…found what I’m looking for. I love you. But I love all my friends. And you’re like…my _best_ friend. Do you get it?”

“That’s why we’re good for each other…” My voice trailed off. A vile feeling wormed into my gut. I felt like I might throw up. The truth was, Jean was my best friend, and I didn’t know what she was saying if she wasn’t saying…

“But, Connie…that’s… _all_ you feel like to me. You’re my best friend. I love you. I love spending time with you. We have so much fun together.”

Her voice was quiet, probably because it hadn’t been like that in a long time. We used to be able to watch something stupid on Netflix or bake something poorly together or go to a park and spend the afternoon eating fast food and watching people walk their dogs. Simple things, but they were some of the best moments of my life. 

I didn’t know when they became memories instead of my plans. 

All this was the backdrop chain of thought to _Oh my God! Was she breaking up with me?_

“What are you saying Sash?” I choked, “You don’t – you’re not…?” 

She sighed. Tears fell down her cheeks as she pulled away from me on the couch, so that my arm wouldn’t be around her anymore. “It’s not like – like I’m in love with anyone else, or anything. I just, I don’t feel that way about you. Anymore. You’re my best friend. But not…not…anything else.”

She waited for it to hit me, but I didn’t think it would. The world felt like it was spinning, and time felt like it was passing, but I was stuck where I was in that moment of hell. Her voice, those words, were on repeat in my thoughts. Like a glitch, just stuttering over them more and more. They echoed on into nothing. 

“Connie?” she asked. 

“I get it,” I spit, “I get it, Sash. Not that hard to understand.”

She sighed, but this time it was like she was irritated. “You know that’s not why I –”

“Yeah. I know.” 

She reached for me, like she thought she was going to hug me. But I stood and left her there. I couldn’t even look at her. I’d break down. I’d beg. I’d make an ass of myself. If making her feel guilty enough to be with me was the only way I could be with her, than I couldn’t be with her. 

She called for me like she had last time, but I shut the door on her voice. 

When I got home, I slammed the front door shut behind me. Jean burst through his bedroom door to see why. He took one look at me and damn near leapt across the living room to get to me. My vision was blurry with the tears. I sunk to the floor and slammed my head against the front door. 

“Connie, what the hell!” he yelled as he slid on to his knees to be by my side. He rested a hand on my shoulder, studying my expression. “What happened at –”

“Sash just broke up with me,” I sobbed. I covered my eyes. 

Jean’s jaw dropped. He shook his head like he couldn’t believe it, then he pressed his back to the door with me. He gawked at me, and I avoided making eye contact. My tears stained my shirt I was crying so badly. My hands wiped my face. 

“Why?” he asked. “Did you…”

“Everything’s falling apart,” I choked. 

“What is?”

“My life! My fucking _life_.”

Jean quieted. He sat there with me until I recovered without saying anything else. When I was ready to stand, he walked into the kitchen and grabbed me a beer. We sat at the couch. The TV was on but neither of us were paying attention to it. I sipped at the beer, but I never drank much and the last thing I wanted was to get drunk and blubber on about everything on my mind. I set it on the coffee table. The light flashed against Jean’s worried expression. I wondered how pitiful I looked sitting here in the dark, feeling sorry for myself. 

“She just wants to see other people,” I said. “I’m the only boyfriend she’s ever had.”

Jean nodded. His arms were wrapped around a pillow like always. I hated how cute it looked. I hated how much I wanted to be the fucking pillow. My life must be really hitting rock bottom if I was jealous of a pillow. 

“Isn’t she the only girlfriend _you’ve_ had?” he asked.

“Yeah, so?” I snapped. The look of embarrassment he gave me made me regret it. 

“I’m just saying…maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you dated other people too. Maybe there’s someone out there better for you. Someone you wouldn’t expect,” he paused, so that he could clear his throat. I could tell he was uncomfortable saying this. The kind of advice Jean usually gave out came with a side of condescending. But this time, he was trying. My heart couldn’t take this, it had been through enough today. “I mean, you never know. Maybe there’s someone who really likes you. Who’s just been…like, waiting for an opportunity. You could give them a shot, I mean…if it turned out you didn’t like it – that person, you know, just break up with them.”

“Yeah, like who? I don’t hang out with any girls besides Sasha, so unless it’s a random chick I don’t know or a –”

I cut myself short. The silence in my apartment roared. My head whipped Jean’s direction. Our eyes met for a split second before he turned away. 

“Did you just – Are you – What…” I stammered.

Jean didn’t respond. His eyes were stuck on the loose thread on his jeans. His fingers tugged at them. 

“You’re going to have to spell this one out for me, Jean.”

Sometimes it was hard for us to talk. He was bad at saying what he meant, and I was bad at figuring out what people meant. We’d go whole conversations, debating back and forth for an hour once in a while, before we even realized we were talking about two different things. For us, I’d learned, it was better to keep it simple. Talk about what we knew. The easy stuff. 

So much of what we talked about lately fell into the no-go zone. 

“I broke up with Samuel,” he said. No more No-Show?

“What?” I breathed. 

“When he bailed on me last time. He promised he wouldn’t go and he did. It was his last chance.”

I cleared my throat. My whole body felt like it was burning up. My hand tugged at my collar, but I wouldn’t cool down. 

“So…why are you telling me that now?”

Jean huffed out a humorless laugh. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, like he needed an excuse not to look at me. “Why do you think, Connie? You’re...you’re the straight best friend, okay?”

He was waiting for a response from me, but I couldn’t find any words to say. All I could do was stare at him. If he meant what I think he meant then…

“When I met you, I didn’t think I’d like you _like that_. I met tons of straight guys all the time and they never…never got to me because once I told them I was in to guys they turned into complete assholes. They were all convinced I was going to hit on them and try to fuck them.”

I was still rewinding to the part when he said I was the straight best friend. We were both sitting in the exact same spot we had been while watching Spider-Man, and yet, at that moment in time it hadn’t occurred to me once that I was on the list of straight guy friends Jean had. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to me because at that point, I was already considering myself as Not-Straight. I wasn’t _gay_ or _bi_ at that moment in time, but I was definitely Not-Straight. 

“So, I never liked them. But you were different right away. You didn’t treat me differently and it…it got to me. You got to me. It figures right?” He chuckled nervously. His eyes were flitting all over the room. I’d never seen him like this. 

“You’ve liked me this whole time?”

He sighed, pinched his eyes shut, but nodded. 

“What about all your hookups?” He’d had so many since I’d known him, besides No-Show. 

“Kind of just there to distract me. I wanted a relationship, but couldn’t get over you so I just…took what I could get.” 

And all this time I thought he was just a player. I was used to seeing some girl or guy slip out of our front door in the early mornings on occassion, or Jean staying out late. He’d been like that since the beginning it seemed. But now that I thought about it, the tie never got tied around the doorknob to our dorm in college until the first semester we spent together had ended.

“Jean, I – I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s okay,” he blurted, “It’s nothing. I mean, it’s whatever, you know. I thought maybe – you asking all those questions earlier, I thought – I don’t know what I thought. But it’s fine, really.”

He stood to leave, and on a knee-jerk reaction I jumped up and reached for him. My hand grasped on to his. He swung around to face me. The hope in his eyes was blinding. 

“You weren’t wrong. I – I can’t stop thinking about it. Guys. You, I mean. Mostly you. Actually, just you. I think about you all the time. That’s never happened to me before and I don’t know what to think about it.”

As if he thought the floor could shatter at the slightest force, Jean stepped closer to me. One of his hands rose through the air, so that I would see what was about to happen before it did. His hand caressed my face. No one had ever done that to me before; it felt so nice. 

“You don’t have to know what to think about it right now,” Jean said.

“Then I don’t know what to think about.” As I looked up at him, I couldn’t believe I was letting him touch me like this. More than that, I couldn’t believe it didn’t feel wrong. 

Jean whispered, “Just don’t think. Don’t think about what it means at all. That’s what I did the first time I was with a guy.”

My eyes widened. This was my first time with a guy. Officially. A rush of adrenaline shot through my veins and my heart started slamming inside my chest like it wanted out. His thumb stroked my cheek, and his other hand holding mine tugged me closer. Jean’s head bent down, and even when I knew it was coming, a jolt of surprise shot through me as he kissed me, deep and long and so, so gentle. 

When his lips parted from mine I felt like my breath went with him. I touched my lips. Jean waited, looking at me like he was afraid if he moved closer he’d scare me away.

But he wouldn’t. Or, he hadn’t. I didn’t know what to think. The kiss felt warm, safe, and it just made me feel _better_. It made me feel _wanted_. Sasha hadn’t kissed me like that in _months_. But Jean knew this kiss was a gamble. He knew that he had to make it right or this would backfire, and he put everything he had in it. He wanted to make sure it would happen again. 

With a shaky inhale, I rose on my toes, hanging on to his shirt. He was even taller than she had been, so I could barely reach, but I kissed him back. As soon as my lips pressed against his, arms wrapped around me and I felt him from head to toe. His cologne was heavy, smelling like pine, overwhelming me. Then his hands pulled me by my hips toward his bedroom. 

We got all the way inside his room, with the door shut, and my back pressed against it before the panic started rising in my gut.

My hands nudged Jean away. He looked confused, and I explained, “Jean I – I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“We can stop,” he said, standing up straight and taking a step away from me.

Despite my nerves, I gripped on to his hand before he pulled all the way away. 

“I don’t want to,” I whispered, “I really don’t.” It wasn’t a lie. Even though I was nervous, I knew I wanted him. I trusted him not to judge me, not to make me uncomfortable, or expect anything from me. He knew me like no one else did. If I was ever going to do this with a guy, I wanted it to be him. 

“Alright, we can.” 

A pang of worry shot through me anyway, but I swallowed it. For fuck’s sake, I wasn’t a virgin. 

Jean tugged his shirt off first. He reached for the hem of mine, and I let him slide it up and off me. He kissed along my neck, my shoulder, and then I felt his hands slide underneath my thighs. My back slid up the door as he lifted me off the ground. I had no choice but to wrap my legs around him and hold on to his shoulders. A shiver ran up my spine from being man-handled like this. 

He carried me to his bed, easing me on to my back. Our chests pressed against each other and I shivered. I’d seen him shirtless a hundred times but it was different like this, in the shade, with the evening light seeping through brown curtains. 

Jean’s eyes met mine. I kissed him, but his lips were trailing down. He spread them across my neck, collarbones, chest, stomach, dragging his lips the whole way. Goosebumps rose on my skin. Blood rushed, my heart pounded, and I became hard. I was embarrassed, but couldn’t figure out why. 

His fingers curled underneath the waistband of my basketball shorts. He glanced up at me. 

“Still good?” he asked. I nodded. 

His hands tugged down my shorts. My boxers went with. His breath tingled my skin. I bit my lips, refusing to look down. Every instinct I had was telling me to stop, that it was wrong for me to be naked in front of him like this. But I didn’t want to, and when I felt his lips kiss my cock I knew I wasn’t a strong enough man for that. 

I gasped, as I slid into his mouth. My hand tangled in his hair, his blond, short hair that I’d been dying to touch for so long.

He was _so_ good. He took it slow, deep, making me feel good from the inside out, I swore. I panted at the sensation, groaning as he continued. A bit of courage worked up inside of me, and I looked down to watch him. His eyebrows were curved up, his eyes pinched shut, looking like he couldn’t get enough of me, couldn’t do this long enough. Then he looked up at me, with smoldering golden eyes as he sank down even lower, taking every bit of me.

His eyes shut again as he moaned around me. 

“J-Jean,” I sputtered. I couldn’t believe it was his name I was saying. “Jean, I – I’m going to – to come if you –”

He slid off of me. Now he was wearing a smirk. The look made something ache inside of me, I _needed_ him, _now_.

My hands clung to his shoulders, pulling him close to me again so that I could kiss him. I was no longer kissing him like I was afraid, but like I would have kissed Sasha, hungrily, sloppily, barely breathing. My hands spread over him, and I let myself touch him. His long, defined back, his chest, his stomach dusted with a blond happy trail. I didn’t know how to touch a man the way I always had a girl but I wanted to learn. 

Between kissing, Jean asked, “Do you want to top or bottom?”

He asked this like I would have asked, “Do you have protection?” or “Should I turn the light off?” or any number of things, but it still caught me off guard. Somehow, I hadn’t realized that we would have to figure that out. 

I couldn’t respond, and Jean chuckled as he lay next to me in his bed. I felt exposed, so I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest. He arched an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. 

“How am I supposed to know?” I blurted. 

Jean’s fingertips grazed up and down my thigh. His eyes savored me, like I might evaporate if he touched me with too much force. 

“I guess you’re not,” he answered, “I just figured you’d have something in mind.”

“Is it going to hurt?” I asked.

“If you bottom, probably at first.”

“So I should top?” Another shiver ran down my spine as I considered that. Jean underneath me, legs wrapped around me, begging for me, moaning for me…

But that would require me to know what the fuck I was doing. I didn’t know how to make him feel good. Not…not just by topping. The thought of fucking him and being bad at it, or coming right away, or something equally humiliating happening petrified me. If I fucked up topping I’d never live it down. At least the pain from bottoming would be temporary.

Jean scooted closer to me in the bed. His hand reached up to tilt my chin his direction, so that I could kiss him. “If you want,” he said, against my lips.

“What did you do your first time?” 

“I bottomed.”

“Did it feel good?”

He smiled. “I did it again, didn’t I?”

I laughed nervously. 

Jean sat up in bed beside me. He wrapped an arm around me, running his fingers along my buzzed had. Everything came so natural to him. He didn’t have to think about _how_ to be with me, he just was. That was because he wasn’t thinking of it as Sex With A Guy, like I was. He didn’t think he had to touch me in any specific way other than how he wanted to. I wanted to be like that. I wanted this to feel natural, and other than overthinking everything, it did. I liked Jean. I really fucking liked him. Besides Sasha, I had never liked anyone like I liked him. 

I rested my hand on his chest, and leaned in to kiss his neck the way he had mine. Jean exhaled. His heartrate spiked underneath my palm. That sort of made me feel amazing. 

“I want to bottom,” I breathed, before I kissed him again. 

Jean let out a shaky exhale. “If you relax, it won’t hurt long. Just try to enjoy it. And trust me, okay?”

That, he didn’t have to worry about. I already did. 

The sun sank beneath the horizon while Jean prepped me. In the dark, I couldn’t see his face as he went down on me, easing his fingers inside of me a bit at a time. It did hurt, and it was difficult to relax, but Jean always listened for when my breath would hitch. He would pause when I flinched. Not once was I ever so uncomfortable I had to ask him to stop, and after a few minutes passed the pleasure of his mouth was so much more intense than the minor pain of his fingers. And then, just as I was getting close, just as I was groaning again, and gripping onto his velvety comforter, his fingers stopped hurting at all. Jean hooked his fingers a bit, put pressure on something that made me melt and I cried out his name as a shock of pleasure strummed inside of me.

Jean’s mouth slid off once more. His breathing was heavy. The plastic of a condom wrapper crinkled as he tore it open. 

“Wait,” I gasped, reaching for the lamp on his nightstand. The light flicked on. And there he was, all of Jean head-to-toe naked sitting on his knees between my spread legs. When I took in the sight of his cock, I couldn’t remember why I had ever assumed men were gross. He was so sexy it hurt. I was wet with more than saliva. Just looking at him made my body shiver from excitement and nerves. 

God, I hadn’t felt like this since I lost my virginity. 

But Jean’s face was insecure, vulnerable again as I looked him up and down. His fingers swirled in the fabric creating little designs by criss-crossing tiny frays.

“Still good?” 

“Yeah,” I mumbled, “Yeah…Come here.”

Jean grinned as he slid the condom on. His body eased over mine. Every hair on my body rose. My ankles hooked behind the small of his back. Jean lined himself up with me. A second passed and he was easing inside of me. I gasped, winced, tried to bite back my yelp. He was a lot bigger than his fingers. 

Jean bottomed out. He held his body still. In order to make me relax, he kissed me, told me how sexy I was, how tight I was, and to my surprise… I loved hearing it. I loved being praised and pampered with kisses. I loved seeing him try to gather his self-control, sit still, pace himself so that he wouldn’t come too early. I wondered if this was how all men were when they were with other men, or if it was just Jean. All I knew was that I couldn’t believe last time I had sex I was in his position, doing everything he was now. This was so much better. 

“I’m ready,” I mumbled. The effects of him blowing me earlier were wearing off and I was starting to feel shy and distant again. 

Jean rolled his hips, giving me a chance to adjust, before he started thrusting. We kissed while he kept a steady pace. His breaths were heavy, and it sounded so good. Everything was new for me. I tried to focus on it all at once – his hips pressing against me, his muscles tensing, his hair falling into his eyes, his lips pressing together in pleasure, his groan deep in his throat as my back arched. He hit me just right and I let out his name. It was hard to focus on anything when I was feeling that good. It completely overwhelmed me, the pleasure coiling in my gut, tightening and spreading through all of me. 

“That good?” Jean asked, as his hips slammed into me. 

I moaned, nodding into our kiss. Jean’s body was rigid. His thrusts were shallower now, not as even. His own moans were slurring into something much more like sobs. He kissed, and licked, and sucked and bit at every inch of skin, channeling how good he felt in the only way he could. “Connie,” he gasped, “I’m – I’m close. I’m gonna come. Wh-what do you need me to do?”

I whimpered at the sound of his voice like that. “Just keep – keep…” I tried to say, as I reached down to grasp myself. Jean noticed what I was doing and tugged my hand away so that his own could take its place. His thrusting slowed, but his hand stroked me, quickly and loosely like he knew exactly how I liked it. 

“Come for me,” he whispered against my ear. I lost any ability to speak. All I could do was lay back, close my eyes, and let it build. Not even ten seconds passed before I groaned, and shook as I gave in. He came then too, as his last few thrusts rocked into me. I watched his face twist with the pleasure, his body quiver, and then the sigh of relief as he slumped over top of me, not caring a bit how sticky it was or how messy we were. 

It took him a few minutes to recover. Once he did, he stood to tie off his condom and throw it away. As he slid in beside me in his bed, I worried it would all be different now. Awkward all of sudden, as if every feeling I had for him would vanish and I’d no longer be attracted to him. 

But his arm wrapped around me. We spooned, and I smiled. I’d gone too long without this, and right now I was so glad it was his arm around me. 

“Was your first time with a guy that good?” I asked.

He sat up on one elbow so he could face me. “So, I did alright then?”

I scoffed. “Uh, _yeah_.” It still shocked me when Jean lacked confidence like that. “I mean…I’m pretty sure. Like, close to positive.” 

Jean snorted, and kissed my neck before he spoke. 

“I didn’t love the first guy I fucked,” Jean whispered, against my shoulder. He wouldn’t look at me. “He was…just some guy I met, who also happened to like guys. I don’t know, it was alright. It felt good. But it wasn’t…like what we just…”

He couldn’t finish his sentence. 

And I couldn’t either. I had no idea how to respond to what he’d said. Did he love me? Was that what he meant? He’d had feelings for me for two years and I had only just now begun seeing him that way. But he’d been my best friend, I knew him inside and out – and with Jean, those two things were very different and I had always considered him my friend regardless. He was someone I cared about, someone I had loved...as my friend. 

For the life of me, I couldn’t tell if that had changed. If I loved him as more than a friend now. 

He was waiting for me to say something, and I had nothing, so I just rolled over to face him. My hand cupped his face this time, and I kissed him. That I could do. I could kiss him until we were exhausted with the lack of sleep, until we could no longer force ourselves to stay awake. 

… 

If I hadn’t opened my eyes, I might not have felt it right away. I might have been able to sigh, roll over, and fall back asleep. I might have paid attention to the pleasant ache in my body, especially my hips. I might have realized I really needed to shower, because my bed and my skin smelled like sex that sat out all night unrefrigerated.

But I didn’t, all of that occurred to me _after_ I opened my eyes. _After_ I realized I was in Jean’s bed, not my own, and that we had spent the night wrapped up in each other. _After_ I opened my eyes, I realized that the pleasant ache in my body was from coiling up around Jean as he fucked me last night. _Me_ , I had been fucked, by _Jean_. 

My body leapt out of bed before my mind had even entirely woken up. The first conscious decision I made was to grab all my clothes. My shirt was tugged on inside out, and I didn’t bother to fix it. Nearly falling on my face, I yanked up my boxers and shorts. My socks were last. 

I barreled out of the door, ready to grab my wallet and keys. I needed to see Sash. I needed to make this right. 

If only Jean wasn’t standing in our kitchen, in nothing but sweats, with headphones plugged into his ears singing _Gone, gone, gone_ softly to the eggs he was frying. 

My heart pinched. I felt like I was being pushed by the universe toward him and yet I –

He turned around, and smiled the way he always could when no one was around to judge. He tugged out his earbuds, wrapping the cord loosely around his neck. They dangled against his chest, which was significantly harder not to stare at with the daylight streaming through the window. For the hundredth time I had to ask myself how I hadn’t known.

“Made breakfast,” he said, gesturing to the frying pan, “Almost.”

I felt like even the blood in my body had halted just to hear my response. I wanted to say anything, _anything_ I wouldn’t regret leave my mouth. _Anything_ that wouldn’t sound like I was having a panic attack. 

But of course, it was me, Connie, The screwer-upper of all time. “I, uh, gotta go…” I muttered.

Jean arched an eyebrow. He glanced at the clock. “Where?”

Unlike him, I was out of a job right now and couldn’t use that as an excuse. It was Saturday, so no classes could be my savior either. Sometimes I went to the school library, but even that wouldn’t do. Jean knew I pretty much was chained to the couch on Saturday mornings until after noon. The odds of me leaving the house early enough to call morning on a weekend were probably about the exact same odds of the apartment catching fire one of those same mornings. 

“I just…gotta go,” I muttered.

Jean called after me, and when I didn’t respond he ran around the countertop to stand in my way of the door. I slid my shoes on anyway.

“Is this about last night?” Jean demanded.

“No,” I lied.

Jean just gaped at me. “It is, isn’t it? Fuck, I knew it. I knew this was going to happen!” His arms swung out, as if he wanted everyone to see the bullshit I was pulling.

“Knew what was going to happen?”

“This _always_ happens with closeted dudes. I should have fucking known better. I just fucking got done with Samuel, I should have seen this fucking coming but I – I trusted you.”

“I’m not closeted!” I yelled.

Jean stared at me like I had hit him. His eyes were bloodshot, tear-rimmed and I could barely stand to see that I had hurt him the way No-Show had, especially when he was right about everything. But I wanted to stay in the closet a little longer. Everyone else got to take their time coming out, why couldn’t I? I didn’t even know what to call myself yet, besides Not-Straight. 

“Sure,” he murmured, “None of them are. They’re all straight until they’re alone with me.”

“Jean I – I can’t help how I feel.” My voice hitched. I was going to cry too, damn it, and I couldn’t deal with that right now. I had to drive. 

“Just…tell me where you’re going. You owe me that.”

I looked away from him as I answered, “Sasha’s.”

He shook his head as he returned to the kitchen. The eggs were burning. 

I reached for my wallet and keys, which were still laying on the floor where I had dropped them the night before, sitting with Jean. 

He didn’t say anything to me as I left. He didn’t even look at me. 

… 

Sasha’s feet thudded on the other side of the door a moment after I knocked. She swung the door open, and as soon as she saw me her whole body stiffened. 

“Connie…Why are you…?” 

She didn’t need to finish her sentence.

“We need to talk.” 

She winced a little at how serious my voice was. I even surprised myself. Normally, I never had a reason to sound like that. 

“If it’s about getting back together then –”

“It’s not.” When I had left my apartment, I thought it had been. But now that I was here, standing on her porch looking through a screen door at her, I knew that wasn’t why I had come. Overnight, Sasha had gone from love-of-my-life to partner-in-crime. I couldn’t explain it, but I just couldn’t see her that way anymore. I needed to talk to my best friend and apparently that was her now.

She gave me a questioning look, like she didn’t believe me, but let me in anyways. She sat on her couch, and offered to let me sit, but I didn’t think I could sit still. I paced back and forth in front of her TV, blocking her telenovelas in little snip-bits. They went on in Spanish, droning on in the background of my thoughts.

“What’s going on, Con?” she asked.

I didn’t know where to start. I wanted to start at the beginning but for whatever reason, I knew if I started at the beginning I wouldn’t make it to the end. So I skipped all the build-up.

“I slept with Jean last night.”

Sasha’s jaw literally dropped. I stopped pacing, so that our eyes could meet and I could study her reaction. She shook her head, open-mouthed and blinking a lot. It looked like she tried to say something, but then she’d close her mouth, still shaking her head, looking even more confused.

“I like him,” I continued, because talking filled the awkward silence. “I have for a while now. And I don’t know why.”

She snorted like that was a huge understatement. “Me neither.”

“I don’t know how to feel about it,” I continued.

She pursed her lips. “Well…did you _enjoy_ it?”

Even though I was embarrassed, and even though I blushed, I nodded. “Yeah.”

“So you like him, and you liked having sex with him, and…he likes you?”

Guilt wormed into my gut, making me feel like I could throw up. “Yeah. He’s always liked me, I guess. Since we shared a dorm.”

Sasha’s eyebrows rose, but she said, “Sweetie, I’m not sure what the problem is then.”

“I’ve never been gay before.” I grappled with the air around me, as if I could catch the answer I was looking for. I paced again. It was soothing. 

Sasha chuckled and I glared at her. 

She pasted on a serious expression. “You’re not _gay_ now. You’re probably bi or pan something. So what?”

“So I’m scared, that’s what!” 

Now Sasha looked saddened. Her eyes were soft, welcoming. I wanted to hug her. I just wanted to be held and forget about the world for a while. Her arms could do that to me. 

“I can’t even… _imagine_ what you’re going through, right now,” she said, placing the words on her lips with care. “But I do know that being scared should never get in the way of being happy. If Jean makes you happy…then you should be with him.”

“What if people –”

“What if people what? Stare at you? Make fun of you? Call you names? Connie…these are things Jean has already been going through. You think he’s going to let you deal with that alone? You think _I’m_ going to let you deal with that alone?”

I sighed. She was right. Jean _had_ been going through this since he was much younger. And I’d always hated that he had to deal with it. Of course I thought it was wrong to hate people like Jean, and of course I thought people like Jean should be able to walk down the street holding hands with the person they love and not get harassed. I thought they should have every right a straight person had. I thought they were just like everyone else. But…it was completely different facing the problem myself. It was completely different feeling this way about people like Jean, than feeling this way when I was one of those people _like Jean_. 

“I mean,” Sasha continued, pulling me out of my trance, “I guess the question you have to ask yourself is: If you can be with Jean, will it make everything else worth it?”

“You’re right,” I said. I thought that was the real question I had been asking all along. 

“I think you should try,” she said, “To see if it’s worth it. If you try, and it isn’t, then you know. But if you don’t…you’ll always wonder what could have been.”

Suddenly, it seemed she wasn’t talking about just me and Jean. And maybe, suddenly, I understood why our breakup didn’t actually come out of nowhere. At least for her, it probably hadn’t come out of nowhere. It had probably been dwelling inside her for a long time, poking at her, begging her to wonder and wonder and wonder. Maybe it bothered her so much that she couldn’t even sleep, like I hadn’t been able to.

“Sash…” I said, “I’m so sorry about…about how we left off.”

She shrugged, the way she did when she wanted me to think it wasn’t a big deal, but it so was. 

“I just want us to be the happiest we can be,” she said, “And I think we were happiest together when we were friends.”

Like always, she was right. 

I wanted to stay. I wanted to hang out with her and do nothing all day but play Battleship or Go Fish with half the cards. Maybe we could waste a whole day watching B-rated, foreign horror films. I didn’t know, I just wanted to be around her.

But there was someone else I wanted to be around more. Someone who needed _me_ around.

“I have to make up with Jean.” 

Her eyes widened as she took in the implication that we had fought. “God, yes. You do. Go. Before he’s too angry to get over it.”

Even she knew how Jean could be.

“But first,” I blurted, as I pulled her into a hug. “Thank you, Sash, really. For being there for us.”

She smiled, then pushed me toward the door. On my way out, she yelled, “Hurry!”

My drive home was borderline up-next-on-Cops. My biggest fear at the moment, as I sped through stop signs, and screeched around corners, was that Jean had left the apartment to see Samuel. My second biggest fear was that he had left the apartment to see anyone else. In general, I was afraid he’d left the apartment. To put it simply, Jean wasn’t that person willing to answer the phone call from someone he was mad at. 

Once I parked, taking up two different spots and a little bit of the curb, I leapt out of my car and sprinted up the staircase to my floor. 

The door was still unlocked, and I flew through it, slamming the door behind me. 

Jean jumped from where he was sitting at our counter’s barstools, still eating his cold breakfast. His earbuds had been in, but he tugged them out so that he could hear himself scream at me.

“What the fuck, Connie?” He gestured to our door, which had shaken every vertically-standing object in the apartment when I slammed it.

“I love you.”

The words left my mouth. Once they were hanging in the air between us, I was relieved to find out it was true. I loved him, and whether or not I had loved him had never truly been the problem. This whole time, the problem was whether or not I was brave enough to let myself love him. 

And now I didn’t care. I just wanted him. I wanted to stay up late with him and talk about all the things he was too arrogant to acknowledge in the daylight. I wanted to take care of him when he was sick, even if he thought he was too tough to be sick. I wanted to be the one in the doorway, and in the bed, making him feel good like no one else had. And I wanted to still be there in the morning. Be there when we had plans to meet somewhere. Be there when someone asked him who I was, so that I could tell them I was his boyfriend.

“I love you,” I repeated, “I don’t know what I am. If I’m bi, or straight, and somehow fell for you anyway. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I don’t want to worry about labeling it. But I know I love you.”

Jean studied my expression. His posture was guarded. His arms crossed over himself like a shield. 

“Didn’t seem like it this morning.”

“This morning I didn’t get it,” I blurted. 

He smiled at that. His eyes were still dark though. “How do I know you aren’t going to freak out tomorrow? I’m not doing the Samuel shit again, Connie. You’re either in this with me or I’m gone. I’m not spending this whole relationship in your closet.”

“I told Sash. She knows we slept together. She knows I want to be with you. She’s the only person I have to tell but…I mean, I could call my mom right now if –”

“You really told Sash?” His arms fell to his sides, and he stood up off the stool to step toward me. His expression no longer looked so betrayed. Now it just looked hopeful. 

“Yeah. I had to. I needed to clear my head and –”

Jean kissed me hard. When I started to pull away he only pulled me closer, kissed me deeper. 

He mumbled against my cheek, “I thought you were going to try to get her back.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want her back.”

“You want me?” he asked. His voice sounded like it could shatter like glass.

“Yeah,” I said, placing my hands on either side of his cheeks. “Just you.”

Jean grinned. We kissed in the hall, and then kissed in the doorway, and then kissed in his bed between tearing clothing off. He kissed me everywhere, and I did the same to him. This time, I touched him like I loved him, the way I wanted to, and all of it was without thinking. Without even trying or noticing. This time I made him feel good, and it didn’t matter that I didn’t know what I was doing. It didn’t matter that it was a little clumsy, or a little giggly, or a little all-over-the-place. 

Because it was with him, and it was the way it was supposed to be. 

… 

In the morning, when I opened my eyes, Jean was still wrapped around me. We were both still naked. His stomach rose and fell against my back. His breath spread goosebumps over my neck. His heartbeat thrummed between my shoulder blades. 

It was early. The sky was still gray. Birds were chirping. The alarm clock read seven am. 

I rolled over to face Jean in bed. He stirred away. One, droopy, amber eye opened to glare at me and resent me. 

“Fucking time is it?” Jean rasped, in his grumpy, haven’t-had-his-coffee-yet voice. 

“Early,” I said, “you can go back to sleep.”

He shook his head. “I’m up,” he said, as he rolled onto his back. All his limbs reached outward, and he arched his back, stretching like a cat. A few bones cracked. Both eyes opened to take in the sight of me. He smiled.

“Do you have work today?” I asked. 

He shook his head. “It’s my day off.” 

“Then we should just stay in bed, all day. You, me, Netflix, and Pizza hut. Nothing else.”

He laughed. It sounded so carefree. Affection I had never quite let myself feel for him blossomed inside me. 

He turned to face me. “I’m just glad you’re still here.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” 

The next kiss I gave him was a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're curious, my personal tumblr URL is in-agony-and-ecstasy@tumblr.com, and my writing-only tumblr URL is the-only-one-in-color@tumblr.com.


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